Bhavish Aggarwal

Bhavish Aggarwal
Born (1985-08-28) 28 August 1985 (age 38)
Ludhiana, Punjab, India
Alma materIIT Bombay (B.Tech)
OccupationEntrepreneur
TitleCo-founder and CEO of Ola Cabs
Founder of Ola Electric
SpouseRajalakshmi Aggarwal

Bhavish Aggarwal (born 28 August 1985) is an Indian entrepreneur, and co-founder of Ola Cabs and the founder of Ola Electric.[1]

Aggarwal was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2018. [2]

Early life

Aggarwal was born and brought up in Ludhiana, Punjab, in a Punjabi Hindu family.[3][4] He completed a bachelor's degree in computer science and engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 2008.[5] He started his career with Microsoft Research India as a research intern and later got reinstated as an assistant researcher.[6]

Career

He began his career with Microsoft, where he worked for two years, filed two patents and published three papers in international journals.[5] In January 2011 he co-founded Ola Cabs with Ankit Bhati in Bengaluru.[7]

Ola Cabs

The idea for a cab company struck Aggarwal when he had a bad experience with a taxi, which led him and Ankit Bhati to co-found Ola Cabs in 2010.

In May 2020, Ola Cabs announced a huge layoff of around 5000 employees in a move to survive the economic repercussions of COVID-19. It had suffered an overwhelming loss of revenue by about 95%.[8] In a webinar addressed to the students of Bennet University, Bhavish said that the COVID-19 pandemic was about to accelerate the innovations in technologies. He claimed that the markets might move towards more car rentals and subscription-based ownerships of cars.[9]

In April 2022, An internal email to Ola employees was sent out, announcing that Bhavish Aggarwal would be stepping down from day-to-day operations of the company to focus on the future of Ola’s venture into electric vehicles and quick-commerce.[10]

Awards

References

  1. ^ Das, Purba (16 January 2016). "#Startup India:Ola Cabs' Bhavish Aggarwal is conscious that security is a concern, more measures need to be taken". Business Insider. Retrieved 3 February 2017.
  2. ^ "Bhavish Aggarwal: The World's 100 Most Influential People". Time. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
  3. ^ "Punjab to New York: Ola co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal's red carpet journey". rediff. 26 August 2018.
  4. ^ Arora, Prashasti (27 August 2018). "From Ludhiana to UK via Australia: How Bhavish Aggarwal drove to success". The Economic Times. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
  5. ^ a b "Bhavish Aggarwal & Ankit Bhati: The men behind Olacabs". The Economic Times. 25 October 2014.
  6. ^ "Bhavish Aggarwal - Yo! Success". Yo! Success. 12 August 2015. Retrieved 27 September 2018.
  7. ^ "Leader in the spotlight-Bhavish Aggarwal". Live Mint. 4 November 2014.
  8. ^ "Ola lays off 1,400 people, co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal explains the move in a letter to survive Covid". Financial Express. 20 May 2020.
  9. ^ "Covid-19 accelerating innovation in mobility, says Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal". Times of India. 19 October 2020.
  10. ^ "Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal to focus on future businesses like EVs; step away from day-to-day management". TimesNow. 12 April 2022. Retrieved 13 April 2022.
  11. ^ "ET Awards 2017: The best and the brightest". The Economic Times. 28 October 2017. Retrieved 5 May 2018.